Now More Than Ever
by cloverhoney
Summary: 8 year old Sakura follows Sasuke home the night of the massacre; what she sees at the Uchiha compound changes everything. AU. SasuSaku.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: welcome to my first AU! Warning, major redesign of Sakura's parents, since their anime design sucked. If you end up liking this i do hope you tell me in the reviews, because I don't want to waste any time writing something that people don't want to even read._

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Haruno Sakura was a tiny girl. Everyone said so. Even at 8 years old, she was small for her age. And precious, if the cheek-pinching adults were to be believed (Sakura believed them). And smart, if she did say so herself (she did). But mostly, she was just small.

And that is what she depended on as she flitted across the sidewalk through the dark night, jumping in the shadows to avoid the stark splotches of light provided by street lamps as she trailed her target. She hid behind trash cans, pressed herself flush against tree trunks and lampposts that scratched at her tender skin.

Her attempts at hiding didn't matter much. Her target was entirely unaware of her pursuit as he ran home from the training grounds. But still, Sakura was careful, fancying herself a _true_ ninja, no matter how much Mama and Papa hoped she would drop out. Drop out and take an interest in civilian life, like a good little girl.

Sakura was not much interested in being a good little girl. She wanted to be a _ninja._

 _Focus!_ She shook the stray thoughts out of her head. Iruka, her teacher at the Academy, was always reminding her to focus. _When you feel your thoughts drifting, tell yourself to focus._

Adults talked too much, as far as Sakura was concerned. She tightened the red ribbon holding her hair off her face and peeked out from behind her tree.

Her target drew further away from her, and Sakura gave chase. She thought of her friends, giggling under Ino's bedsheets, waiting for her to come back unsuccessful. _Not this time_. This time, Sakura was determined to complete the dare.

She was going to find out _exactly_ where Sasuke lived and report back to her starry-eyed friends. Her eyes narrowed onto the Uchiha crest on the target's back.

The target slowed, and Sakura knew they must be nearing _The Destination_ , as she's dubbed it in her head - it sounded ninja-ish. The thought of being in the Uchiha Compound after dark sent shivers down her spine. Technically, she wasn't _not_ allowed in the compound - everyone was allowed in, to buy Uchiha goods or do Uchiha work. But Sakura got the feeling that she shouldn't have come here. Not tonight. She glanced up at the full moon and considered turning back.

Sasuke came to a sudden stop inside the compound, and quickly assessed his surroundings, as if he'd heard a cat in the bushes. Sakura watched, peeking out from behind the corner of the building she's hidden herself behind. She shook her head and reminded herself that tonight, he wasn't Sasuke. He was her target. _Think like a ninja._

Something flickered along the rooftops, and Sasuke stopped again. He stared up at an electricity pole for a long time before moving on. Sakura glanced at the same pole as she passed it. There was nothing there, and she felt uneasy; it was so quiet in the Uchiha compound. She'd been there before, with Ino - it was usually a loud place, even at night, people haggling or visiting or breathing fire. Sakura couldn't breathe fire, even if she tried her best. Sasuke could - she'd seen him do it. She liked him, but that was just weird, in her opinion.

He continued on after a shake of his head and she followed after him. He expertly maneuvered through the streets, and shops and stalls began to melt into residences. The homes were nicer than any house Sakura had ever been in before - even Ino's. They were tall, regal, with sharp edges and perfectly manicured hedges. She tried to imagine herself living in one of these mansions, but she couldn't. All she could see was her own tiny house down the street from her parents' shop.

In her distraction, she didn't notice that Sasuke had stopped again. She almost gave away her position by barreling into him, but managed to slip behind a small hedge at the last moment and allowed herself to glance around the corner to see why he'd stopped a second time.

She clapped a hand to her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

There were bodies everywhere, littered on the street like garbage. Each corpse lay in a pool of its own blood, and immediately Sakura knew they were beyond saving - some were still breathing, but barely, ragged death rattles escaping their bloodied lips in gasps. Sasuke remained frozen, but not for long - he broke into a sprint. For a moment, Sakura couldn't move. She considered her options - get an adult, or follow Sasuke, who might be racing toward the cause of this violence. Her instincts were of two minds - the child wanted to run. The ninja wanted to follow.

She forced her tremors down, clenched her jaw, and followed him, making less of an effort to conceal herself. Sasuke didn't look back, didn't notice her presence. He was distracted, fear quickening his steps.

He wove through the streets expertly, picking up pace, and Sakura followed until he stopped in front of a large house that looked like a palace compared to her own home. The front door was ajar. He took an uncertain step forward, then several, then he pushed open the door and slipped inside.

He screamed. The door slammed shut behind him.

Sakura tried to slow her heart rate with the techniques that Iruka had taught the class - hyperventilating wouldn't do her any good, not right now. _Plan first, panic later._ She hid in the hedges lining the property and looked around for street signs, house numbers, something to tell the first adult she can find. She knew the closest posted Anbu patrol was nearly a quarter mile west from the entrance to the compound. If she ran as fast as possible, maybe they could be at the compound within ten minutes.

She was about to untangle herself from the bushes and make a run for it when she heard the door open and then slam shut. Quick footsteps approached the hedges. She held her breath, kept her miniscule chakra concealed the way she was taught in the academy.

The footsteps passed her, and she caught a glimpse of a man running past the bushes. Blood, fresh and dried, decorated his face and clothes. He looked a lot like Sasuke - she could see it in his long hair, his lips, the shape of his face.

His eyes were different. They were bright red.

Moments after the man passed her, she heard the door open and shut again. It was Sasuke, and he didn't notice her either as he broke into a run. He was covered in blood, breathing hard, tears streaming down his face, as he chased after the man. She knew Sasuke's face like the back of her hand from years worth of covertly studying him in the Academy. She'd never seen him like this.

After several beats of hesitation, Sakura followed after the pair. She wasn't entirely sure why she did it, but she couldn't stop herself, couldn't stop her legs from running after them. She followed Sasuke down another street, careful to keep herself concealed at all times. She came to rest behind an ancient-looking weapons shop when he finally caught up to the man, and shouted, "Itachi!"

 _Itachi?_

The man stopped and turned to face Sasuke. He opened his mouth, and his voice sounded cruel, hard, calculated.

Sakura could hear their voices, but couldn't make out the words over the sound of the blood rushing in her ears and the _thumpthumpthump_ of her frightened heart. She watched them, and her whole body trembled as her mind raced. The man was clearly much stronger than both of them combined, if he was the one who murdered all of those people who lay strewn in the streets with nothing but the swords on his back. She can see no other option - she had the strong feeling that the three of them were the only _living_ bodies in the compound.

 _Why haven't we been found?_ Anbu patrols or at least the posted chunin squad should have heard _something_ by now, should have come to investigate...

Sasuke and the man argued for a few moments before Sasuke suddenly collapsed to the ground.. The man caught him before his head hit the cement and slowly - _gently -_ laid him on the concrete. Her heart constricted, jumping into her throat, at the sight of the man's bloodstained hands on Sasuke's head. _He's going to kill him._ Sakura bit her lip. What would Ino do, right now, if it was Sakura on the ground? She wouldn't just sit and watch. A real ninja would never just sit and let their comrade be killed.

Sakura threw herself out from behind the shop before she could talk herself out of it, before she could really _think_ about what she was about to do.

"Stop!" she shrieked, keeping one hand on the building to stop her knees from giving out. Her voice didn't sound like her own - it was shrill, afraid. The man's head turned to look at her. "Don't hurt him!"

They made eye contact and Sakura knew that he thought of killing her. She braced herself, reaches for a kunai that isn't strapped to her waist - she's in her pajamas, after all - but to her surprise, the man's swords stayed in their sheaths, and his eyes softened.

"Who are you?" he asked, and his voice is not unkind.

"Haruno Sakura," she said breathlessly. "He's my friend. Don't… don't kill him."

"He's my brother," the man sighed. "I wasn't going to kill him. It was good of you to try to stop me. Are you an academy student?"

She nodded, trembling. Sakura had never been so afraid in her entire life - this man, with his blood-covered swords and red eyes, was speaking to her as if the streets weren't littered with corpses that he had cut down.

"My name is Itachi. I'm not going to hurt you, Sakura. You will be a good Konoha ninja someday. Do you always run around our compound in your pajamas?"

"You killed all of those people," Sakura whispered. Her throat was closing in on itself, aching with fear.

"I did," he nodded, and his eyes were unfathomably sad behind their blood-red veneer. "But I have no quarrel with you. A friend of Sasuke's is a friend of mine, Haruno Sakura. I have to go, but will you make sure he's okay?"

Sakura nodded, one hand clutched to her chest, the other still supporting her weight against the brick wall. The man turned to leave; with one last look at his younger brother, he sighed. His eyes were wet with tears. "Look after him."

With that, he disappeared into the night, his form fading quickly against the pitch black sky. Sakura finally allowed herself to collapse, scraping her knees on the concrete - she didn't feel it, her entire body overcome with simultaneous fire and ice. Sasuke was lying maybe fifty feet from her body but it may as well have been a mile. She couldn't move, not an inch, hyperventilations racking her lungs, joints locked in place.

For several moments she remained frozen where she fell. She worried that Itachi will change his mind, turn around and come for them both.

 _Then shouldn't you get out of here before he comes back?_

The thought allowed her to bend her knees and stand, stumbling shakily to Sasuke's body. She knelt next to him and pulled his arm over her shoulder and lifted him carefully - despite her stature, she was stronger than she looked; Mama always said so, letting her carry sacks of flour to the shop all by herself.. She stood slowly, and whether it was the adrenaline pumping through her veins or her own strength, he wasn't nearly as heavy as he looked.

Sakura retraced her steps with Sasuke on her shoulder - she couldn't navigate the streets as nimbly as Sasuke had, but she thought she remembered the way back to the village. She passed by his home and pauses, wondering what was inside that had made Sasuke scream like that, but she decided that she didn't really want to know.

Once finally outside of the compound, she set her path homeward, hoping to run into a grownup before then. Civilian or ninja, it doesn't matter, as long as she found someone.

In her heart, she knew that there was nobody left that could be saved in the compound. She ignored her heart, telling herself that the medics in Konoha could work miracles, that if she could just find _someone,_ then there might be survivors...

There was no one to be found. The village was unusually quiet and empty; the roads and trees were dark, as if they too were too afraid to make a sound. For a moment, the chilling thought that maybe the carnage did not stop inside the Uchiha compound stopped her heart, that maybe the reason that she did not run into a single patrol was because Itachi killed them too.

She shook the idea out of her head and pressed on. The full moon illuminated her way, and she listened to Sasuke's steady breathing in her ear, a reassurance that she wasn't the only person left in the entire world, no matter how alone she felt in that instant.

Sakura carried him on her back for the better part of two miles, passing by the lookout posts that she had never seen empty until tonight.

Eventually she reached her own street, every muscle in her body burning and protesting as she dragged herself up the steps to her home and through the front door, and dropped to her knees on the carpet in the front hall. Sasuke slumped beside her, still unconscious.

"Mama!" Sakura screamed, and within seconds, light flooded the hallway, spilling out of her parent's room.

"Sakura?" she heard her father's voice call, and the rustling of sheets as he and her mother jumped out of bed, her mother pulling on her ratty bathrobe. "Are you okay? What happened at Ino's hou-"

"Oh no," her mother gasped when she emerged from the bedroom, her father right behind her. "What happened?"

"I don't know!" Sakura sobbed. "He was going home, and I followed him there, and everyone was dead and he won't wake up so I brought him here so you can fix him!"

Mebuki leaned down and scooped Sakura into her arms, and her father felt Sasuke's neck for a pulse, pulling a cushion from couch to put under Sasuke's head. Sakura buried her face into her mother's neck, breathing into her long brown hair.

"We have to get the Hokage. That boy is a Uchiha," Mebuki whispered over Sakura's head. "Kizashi, she says people are dead. Call someone."

"Right." Kizashi, flustered, left Sasuke's side to pull his overcoat from the hook by the door. "Can you manage by yourself?"

"Of course I can!" Mebuki snapped. "Hurry!"

And with that, Sakura's father rushed out the door. Mebuki cradled Sakura in her arms, smoothing the hair on the back of her head, and murmured quiet reassurances while she placed Sakura down on the couch and wrapped her in a blanket.

Sakura shivered and watched her mother kneel next to Sasuke. She placed a hand on the boy's forehead and used her other hand to peel back one of the boy's eyelids.

Sakura recoiled into the couch. _Red_. Sasuke's eyes are red. _Just like Itachi's._

It was not a good night, to say the least. Sakura briefly wondered about her friends huddled up in Ino's large bed, doling out truths and dares and never-have-I-evers; they must be asleep by now. She wondered how long they waited for her before deciding that she chickened out and scampered home to her mama.

She hoped she wouldn't have to see them tomorrow.

It didn't take long for her father to return, and he had the Hokage and three other ninja in tow. Sakura recognized them as Anbu by their masks - _where were you_? They crowded around Sasuke, mumbling to each other, peeking at the red eyes under his closed eyelids. Sakura caught some words she knew - compound, shock, massacre.

Her father whisked her up to her room, and sat with her until she falls asleep. When she asked if Sasuke was going to be okay, he assured her the boy would be fine. Sakura knew he was lying, but she didn't mind.

She dreamed of the kind, red eyes of the man who murdered his family in one night.


	2. white lies

_A/N: First of all, what lovely, incredible feedback you all left me on the first chapter. I was an idiot and posted the first chapter before I had the story fully formed in my head - but now that I do, we can continue full steam ahead. Sorry if this chapter is a little boring - trying to get some exposition out of the way so we can jump right into the plot._

 _Also, note: the members of team seven are fucking tiny babies at this point. Sasuke cries. He's eight. Everyone he ever loved is dead. It's not out of character._

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 **now more than ever chapter 2**

 **white lies**

 **six hours after the massacre**

The Uchiha clan, that ancient, dark monolith, had taken its dying breath; the death rattle of the diseased goliath had exhaled a thick fog over the midnight streets of Konoha.

This was the vision that Sarutobi Hiruzen gazed down upon from the window in his office. He was seated at his wide oak desk, the fingers of one hand tapping the wooden surface impatiently; the others pinched the bridge of his squat nose. A frustrated sigh crept out of his lungs as he glanced at the clock. It was very nearly one in the morning.

All was dark, and all was silent - and all would remain as such until the people awoke to learn of the atrocities that had ripped through the village in the night.

 _Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,_ he thought, his restless fingers tapping, tapping, _tapping_. The words had been Tobirama's parting gift to him, and never before had they felt more… _apt_.

Uchiha Fugaku's corpse was still warm, his murder mere hours past when Hiruzen had gone to see him in the morgue. Even in death, the Uchiha clan head was as stern and imposing as ever, his black eyes forever closed but somehow still watching Hiruzen's every move.

Yes, the corpses were still warm, cooling sluggishly - the operation had gone exactly as planned, with the exception of _one_ thing. One tiny, tiny thing.

A _child._ A little _girl,_ eight years of age.

He knew exactly how much trouble an eight-year-old could cause - an image of a little blond, blue-eyed hooligan buzzed around his mind with a can of spray paint in hand and a cackle on his lips. He waved the image of Minato's boy out of his mind - for all of the trouble that Uzumaki Naruto was, he hadn't appeared in the middle of a planned massacre and emerged with Fugaku's second son on his back. No, that honor belonged entirely to Haruno Sakura.

 _Haruno Sakura._ A fitting name for a girl who looked like the incarnation of springtime, he thought. For all of the headache had caused, she was a tiny thing - he had seen her curled on her parents' couch, bloodstained hands trembling as she watched the boy be collected from her home.

Now, her Academy picture stared up at him as he thumbed through the pages of her thin file. She was not a bad student - fourth in her class, with a talent for chakra control and book smarts - abysmal taijutsu scores, but that was common in girls of her age.

And, interestingly, a genjutsu type per her entrance examination. A rare enough designation that he wondered why the girl hadn't been brought to his attention before. _High yield_ had been checked off as Iruka's primary evaluation of the girl - she was slated to be placed on an offense combat specialist squad when she graduated from the Academy. Just like the boy.

He closed the pitifully thin file and returned to the window overlooking the village, clasping his hands behind his back.

Hiruzen had thought that the terms of the deal had been made quite clear to Itachi: there was to be only one survivor. Itachi had pleaded harder than Hiruzen had ever seen a man plead, all for the sake of the boy - Uchiha Sasuke, who might have been something special if he had not been the second son born on the heels of a once-in-a-hundred-years prodigy.

But there had not been only one survivor left within the compound walls. Did Itachi simply permit the girl to witness the most clandestine of operations and leave the compound with the brother in tow, jeopardizing the terms of the agreement for the sake of one young stranger?

 _Why would he do such a thing?_ he thought, frowning. And then, _what should he have done instead?_

A knocking at his door interrupted his thoughts.

"Come in," Hiruzen called, although he wanted nothing more than to remain in peace for a few minutes longer.

The door opened, and Danzo stood in the doorway. The Hokage had never much liked Danzo - he looked like the sort of beat-up tomato that Hiruzen would pass over at the market. The sort of tomato that's so rotten it might as well be poison.

Danzo shuffled into the office, shutting the door behind him. "You have been told about the girl, I presume?"

"I have," Hiruzen confirmed. He took a seat at his desk.

"Then it would appear that Itachi did not maintain his end of the deal," Danzo said, sliding into the chair across from Hiruzen's desk.

"There was no stipulation in the plan for murdering non-Uchiha innocents. It would have been worse if he killed her. "

"Would it have been?" Danzo mused, tapping the scar on his chin thoughtfully.

"Yes," Hiruzen said emphatically, choosing not to share that he had just been entertaining thoughts of a similar nature moments before Danzo had knocked on his door.

"The girl is going to be changed," Danzo murmured. "To have seen such violence at such a tender age. She is an academy student, is she not? What does Iruka have to say about her?"

"Not much," Hiruzen said wearily. "But she is a genjutsu type with purportedly exact chakra control."

"I wonder if you and I find that interesting for the same reason," Danzo said delicately.

"Leave the child out of your planning, Shimura," Hiruzen objected. "She's too young."

"It will be interesting to see what she makes of herself," Danzo said calmly, continuing despite Hiruzen's rebuke. "Children are so… _affected_ by such brutality."

"It's to their credit. It's indecent, how accustomed we have become to such things."

"The generation before hers cut their teeth on chaos when they were much younger than she is now, and some of the most brilliant fighters were born in the blood of that battlefield - Itachi included."

"Their sacrifice was _specifically_ so that her generation could be spared the same upbringing," Hiruzen said sharply. "In the name of peace."

"Peace cannot last forever. It is not an enduring thing. And we - Konoha - we are not in the business of peace."

'"We are not in the business of exploiting children unnecessarily, either," Hiruzen said, narrowing his old eyes. "The violence that occurred tonight was necessary to _avoid_ yet _another_ war, as you do not need reminding. We have no need for the child to become a soldier before her time."

"I am merely suggesting that it would be wise to watch her closely," Danzo replied placidly. "We cannot predict how this will change her. Especially as a genjutsu type - just look at Hatake Kakashi."

"There are resources in place for children with similar trauma," Hiruzen said. "And she still has her parents. The girl will be fine."

"Fear," Danzo murmured, as if the word alone were argument enough. "Fear makes the best warriors... eventually."

Hiruzen had no rebuttal to this, even if he didn't necessarily agree.

"I heard the boy awakened his own Sharingan last night."

"It was inevitable."

"I wonder how he and the girl will process this differently. An Uchiha and a precision specialist… many great combat squads of the past were built from the same foundation," Danzo said pensively.

"You wonder about a lot of things," Hiruzen grumbled. "One might begin to wonder himself what all of your wonderings are for."

"It's been an interesting night," Danzo said casually. "More interesting than we've had in a while. Allow an old man his pondering, Hiruzen."

The silence that passed between them was heavy with the ghost of implication.

"Let the girl sleep for a few hours more," Hiruzen said finally, and he turned away from Danzo to stare out of the window that looked out onto his quiet village. He did not like to turn his back on the greasy, one-eyed man, but Hiruzen could not bear to look at his bandaged face for one second longer. No matter how long they had known each other, Danzo made Hiruzen's skin crawl. No matter how necessary of a service he provided.

When he heard the oak doors open and shut, he knew that Danzo had taken his words as the dismissal that they were. Hiruzen was alone once again.

The tides were shifting, he knew; his old bones could feel it. He feared that in his unending quest for peace, he had finally gone too far, and that the tide was coming to wash his peace away.

The corpses of the once-great Uchiha clan lay silent in the morgue beneath his feet, but he could have sworn that he heard their screams echoing through the foggy, silent streets of Konoha.

 **..**

 **..**

 **..**

 **four days after the massacre**

Rain drummed gently against the window of Sasuke's hospital room, rivulets of water trailing down the glass as he stared out at the gray-stained morning sky.

The window had been locked shut since the first day, when he had tried to climb out of it and go home. He'd been caught by the ankle by a woman named Mebuki, who he'd never seen in his life.

Now he just stared at the rain, eyes blank, mind numb and sluggish from the truth that had been hand-fed to him by the third hokage himself. The hokage had said something about his compound, something about his brother, and something about a girl - but in the end, the words that had stopped Sasuke's heart: _they're all gone. There were no survivors. I'm sorry._

When the hokage had departed, Sasuke had been left alone with Mebuki, who had settled right back into the chair she'd been sleeping in when Sasuke had first woken up. She didn't talk much, but Sasuke knew she was watching him.

The woman had hair longer and straighter than his own mother's. It was soft brown, not black, and she had it pulled back into a braid more often than not, which was something his own mother never did. His father liked her hair far too much for that. Mebuki's eyes were also different - bright green, like young leaves on the first morning of spring. He'd never met Mebuki before, but somehow, he knew her eyes from the moment he first saw her sitting next to his bed when he woke.

Despite the differences, the woman pats his arm with the same tenderness that his mother used to. That she never would again.

It was almost eight in the morning. Time for the hokage to come and tell him, again, that all the Anbu squads in the world haven't been able to catch his brother.

 _Itachi._

Sasuke choked back a sob, pressing his palms into his eyes. They were all gone, all _really, truly_ gone, and they weren't coming back.

He was alone.

And that would never change.

The only thing worse than Itachi killing his entire family, he thought, was that he left Sasuke alive.

 **..**

 **..**

 **..**

Across the village, Sakura was also watching the rain from her desk in the Academy classroom while Iruka droned on about village history.

Her fingers were tracing the desktop absentmindedly as her mind raced.

She had told a lie.

The hokage himself had returned to her house the morning after the massacre- Mama had opened the door to find him standing on the front steps in the rain, cheerfully inquiring if Sakura was home and politely asking if he may come inside. Mama had hesitantly acquiesced. He hadn't stayed long - just long enough to ask a few questions and to compliment Mama's coffee.

He was old - Sakura didn't know how old, but he was older than twenty, and that made him elderly, as far as Sakura was concerned.

 _Out of bed past our bedtime, weren't we?_ he had asked pleasantly, seated at the kitchen table across from Sakura. She had stuttered through the best explanation she could give - Ino's slumber party and the dare to learn where Sasuke lived _._

He waved her explanation away with a chuckle and an airy "girls will be girls" before his wrinkly face had turned serious and pensive.

 _What happened, child?_

And Sakura had lied.

She couldn't tell him what Itachi had said to her.

And she didn't really know why.

The moment she had shared with Itachi felt intimate, secret, like when Papa would sneak her half a candy bar before dinner when Mama wasn't looking. The unspoken understanding was almost more important than the moment itself: _this is between us._

And that scared her. Uchiha Itachi was a bad man, a man who had killed his entire family. She did not want to have any shared moments, any secrets, any association with a person capable of that kind of violence.

And she was so confused. For a moment - a brief, melancholy moment - Itachi had seemed kind and soft and _sad._ She remembered his plea to look after his little brother, lingering over the corpses in the street. It sounded more like a prayer than anything.

The hokage was the boss of all ninja, Sakura knew, and she didn't want to say anything that would make her seem sympathetic to a man like Uchiha Itachi. It just… it just didn't seem like what he wanted to hear. And Sakura was the kind of child that told adults exactly what they wanted to hear, and nothing else. A pathological need to please, born of the need for praise and security.

And that was also why she didn't ask why the usual guard patrols were not where they were supposed to be, why not a single adult was anywhere to be found as she dragged Sasuke's limp body through the village with blood on her pajamas and the cold night air burning her lungs. Even at eight years old, she knew that the village was never so poorly protected.

No, things were not sitting right with Sakura. Her safe world was crumbling around her, and she was desperate to tape it back together.

But she couldn't say anything. Because she wanted to be a _ninja._ Didn't she?

"Hey, forehead. Iruka-sensei is talking to you."

A soft poke on her shoulder accompanied Ino's whisper. Sakura snapped out of her reverie, finding that she was still sitting at her desk, with twenty pairs of eyes staring at her - including Iruka-sensei, who was standing at the front of the class.

She felt herself flush, her face burning uncomfortably.

"Sakura?" Iruka called from the front of the classroom. "Did you hear me?"

She could hear people whispering behind her. It was her first day back since the massacre, and it seemed like everyone at school knew she was there at the compound that night. Sakura thought she heard her name whispered more than once that day. She felt her ears burn, and she shrunk into her seat, wishing she could just disappear.

 _They're whispering about_ me.

Sakura nearly jumped out of her seat when Ino slammed her open hand onto the desk and shot her arm in the air.

"Iruka-sensei, how was she supposed to hear you when the buttheads behind me are whispering so loud that I can't even hear the lesson!" Ino complained loudly, turning to glare at the two girls sitting at the desk behind her. The girls stuttered their objections, red-faced.

"No name-calling, Yamanaka," Iruka said. "Sakura, your mother and Lord Third are here to check you out early."

 _Oh, no._ The redness of her face deepened, crawling down her neck and into her fingertips. Her first thought was _they know_ \- knew about her lies, knew about Itachi, knew that she'd snuck out of bed last night to check that the patrols were where they were supposed to be, where they hadn't been that night…

"Go," Ino whispered, shoving her out of her seat.

Sakura stood woodenly and marched to the front of the classroom, where Iruka smiled at her and opened his mouth to say something -

There was a screeching sound as a chair was pushed back, and Sakura turned around. A boy with spiky blond hair and a bright orange jacket jumped to his feet.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto and I got somethin' to say. Believe it," the blond boy announced, planting his palms on the desk in front of him. Sakura shrunk into Iruka's side.

"We know your name, Naruto," Iruka sighed. "You don't have to introduce yourself every time you want to say something."

"Ya shouldn't listen to _nobody_ who whispers behind your back," Naruto proclaimed, pointing at Sakura. "Right, Iruka-sensei? Tell her that. Same as you told me."

Iruka dragged his hand down his face - something Papa did when he was frustrated - but then he smiled, his friendly eyes crinkling. "He's right, Sakura. Nobody should be whispering behind your back. Thank you, Naruto. Sit back down."

Naruto shrugged and sat, turning to glare at everyone behind him, as if daring them to challenge his words. Sakura watched him carefully - somehow, she felt a little better, if somewhat more embarrassed. _He's kind of like Ino,_ she thought. _Brave._

Iruka guided Sakura out of the classroom with a warm hand on her shoulder, which he gave a reassuring squeeze when she saw Mama standing outside of the classroom with the hokage by her side.

"Taking my best student, Lord Third?" Iruka said cheerfully. Sakura glanced at him - she wasn't his best student by three places. Ino, Shikamaru, and Sasuke all had her beat.

"Only for the afternoon, Iruka. She'll be back tomorrow," the hokage replied, his hands clasped behind his back.

Sakura's stomach settled slightly. If she was coming back to school tomorrow, then they couldn't be planning on tossing her in ninja prison. Right?

"Sasuke is allowed visitors today," Mama said, smiling softly. Sakura's ears perked up - _I get to see Sasuke?_

"It might be nice for him to have someone his own age visit," the hokage added. "So we thought we might take you to see him."

Iruka patted her shoulder once more. "I'll send Ino home with your homework. Go on."

Sakura looked back at the classroom one more time, feeling uncertain - the hokage couldn't be lying, could he? No. Hokages didn't lie.

"Okay," she said, and reached for Mama's hand.

 **..**

 **..**

 **..**

Sasuke was still staring out of the window when he heard the door to his room being pushed open. He didn't turn around to see who it was. Probably just another nurse. There was nothing wrong with him - nothing that they could fix, anyway - so he didn't know why he had to stay.

"Sasuke," a deep, gruff voice said carefully. Sasuke recognized it as belonging to the hokage - out of the ordinary, since the old man had already been by once today. "You've got visitors, if you'd like."

Sasuke shrugged. He didn't care to see visitors, but he didn't care enough to send them away, either. No matter who it was outside that door, it wasn't who he wanted to see.

He heard shuffling feet enter his room. Still, he didn't turn.

"Hello, Sasuke," he heard Mebuki clear her throat. He couldn't tell why she kept coming back - they didn't talk much.

"Haruno Sakura has come to visit you," the hokage said.

 _That_ made Sasuke turn so fast his neck felt like it might snap. He'd heard that name so many countless times in the past 24 hours - the person who they told him dragged him unconscious out of the compound, the last known person to come face to face with Itachi.

A wide-eyed, tiny, pink-haired girl was hiding behind Mebuki's leg.

She just looked… sweet. Harmless. Not like someone who could go toe to toe with Itachi. Not the Itachi he knew, if such a man ever existed.

Sasuke didn't say anything. He just stared at her - her entire face turned redder the longer he stared. His mother always told him staring was rude. But his mother wasn't here now, so he didn't bother averting his gaze.

"I'm sorry about your parents," she mumbled, eyes on the ground. "And the rest of your clan."

"Sakura," Mebuki chided, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Some tact, please. We talked about this."

But Sasuke didn't say anything, still. He glanced between the girl and Mebuki. So that's where he recognized the eyes from - the two were clearly related. He'd seen Sakura before at the Academy - the pink hair is hard to forget - but he'd not known her name until now, and Mebuki had spoken of a daughter but never given him a name.

"Sasuke, this is my daughter, Sakura. She's always spoken very highly of you," Mebuki said, as if she could see the wheels turning in Sasuke's head.

"Well," the Hokage cleared his throat. "Now that introductions are made, I'll leave you to it. Mebuki, I humbly leave these children in your able care."

Sasuke almost snorted. It was laughable how clearly uncomfortable the old man was, how quick he was to make his exit at the first opportunity. He was always like this - never looked Sasuke in the eye, never stayed longer than he had to. It was fine with Sasuke - he wished they would all just leave him alone. He wanted nothing to do with any of them.

Hiruzen started to leave, but Mebuki caught his sleeve as he passed her. "May I talk to you? In the hall?"

He nodded, surprised. "Of course you may."

"Sasuke, will you please look after Sakura while I go have some grown-up words with the Hokage?" Mebuki said pleasantly.

"But-" Sakura began to protest. Her mother shushed her and pushed her into the chair next to Sasuke's bed.

"Just talk to each other," Mebuki huffed, and hurried after the old man. Sakura watched her go, like a fawn left in a clearing of lions.

For a long while after the door clicked shut, they said nothing. Sakura stared at the ridges on her fingernails, hands clenched in her lap.

"Why did you follow me?" Sasuke finally demanded, breaking the silence. She flinched, like his words had bitten her, but didn't look up from her hands.  
Sakura shrugged, but said nothing.

"Look at me." Sasuke commanded, trying to sound like Father. It didn't work.

"It was a dare," she mumbled so quietly he almost couldn't hear her.

"A dare?" he scoffed.

"My friends dared me to follow you home from training," Sakura stuttered. "I didn't mean… I didn't think that he - Itachi-"

"Don't say his name," Sasuke snapped. "Don't."

The girl quailed and shrunk even further into the chair. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. But I just wanted to follow you home and then I saw - I saw what was there, and I-"

"You just hid like a little baby," Sasuke said scornfully. Because he wanted to hurt her, didn't want to be the only one in the world in pain, wanted to lash out. Wanted to have _some_ power back, rather than just sitting here, helpless in every way.

"I didn't!" she said, her voice trembling.

"Then you just sat back and watched?" he asked viciously.

"I didn't know what to do," she said, and the first tears start to well in her eyes. She finally looks up at him.

"Maybe if you'd gone and gotten a grown-up then my brother wouldn't have been allowed to leave and he would still be here!"

Sasuke knew this wasn't true - nobody could stop Itachi from doing something he wanted to do. Not even Father. But it felt good, right, to blame someone else. For it to be someone else's fault that his family was _gone_ and he was _alone._

"I was just trying to help!" she insisted. "And besides-"

"Then you should have left me there to die!" Sasuke shouted, and he lashed out, flinging the glass of water off of his bedside table. It shattered against the wall, and the girl flinched.

"But he wasn't going to kill you! He said so! He told me that you're his brother so he didn't want to kill you and that -" Sakura's eyes widened and she clapped a hand over her mouth, as if to stop herself from saying anything else.

"You talked to him?" Sasuke asked incredulously, forgetting his anger for a moment. "What else did he say?"

Sakura glanced at the door, unsure if any grownups might be outside, listening in. Her voice dropped to a shaky whisper. "I can't tell you."

The anger returned, red and cloying and _vicious._ He was _so sick_ of the things people couldn't - _wouldn't -_ tell him. Father, Mother, Itachi, the Hokage, and now this _little girl._

"You," Sasuke spat, "Are so annoying."

Then the door opened again and Mebuki walked back into the tiny room. She frowned at the puddle of water and shattered glass on the floor.

"What happened here?" she asked, glancing between Sasuke and her daughter, who was a particularly deep shade of strawberry red.

For a moment, there was silence.

"I dropped it," Sakura said, slightly breathless.

"You dropped it… across the room?" Mebuki asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Sasuke tried to catch it but it was slippery so he accidentally just knocked it away," she lied. "Honest."

"Sasuke? Is that what happened?" Mebuki asked him.

Sasuke glanced at Sakura before he nodded.

"Well, if you say so," Mebuki said, not sounding entirely convinced. "Then Sakura, you can go get a nurse to clean it up."

"Yes, Mama," Sakura said, standing.

"But first," Mebuki said, clapping her hands together, "I have news to share with the two of you."

* * *

 _A/N: So Sasuke came off a little cruel in this chapter - but he wasn't a cruel child, especially not before the massacre. he's just reeling and lashing out where he can, and he's used to getting his way. He'll come back around, but they won't be immediately close. And thank you, thank you, thank you for reading._


End file.
